LOS ANGELES (CN) – Five years ago, when then-Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca appointed Paul Tanaka as second in command of one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the nation, the Japanese-American lawman became his boss’ confidant and likely successor. In 1998, Tanaka supported Baca’s campaign for the sheriff rather than backing the incumbent Sheriff Sherman Block.

PASADENA, Calif. Before World War II, the Camille Pissarro painting of a Paris street was displayed in a well-appointed room in the Berlin residence of Lilly Cassirer, whose Jewish family had owned the Impressionist artwork since the turn of the century. Decades later, the 1897 oil on canvas, “Rue Saint-Honoré, Après-midi, Effet de Pluie,” would find a home at the Thyssen-Bornemisza art museum in Madrid, where visitors would lean in to look at the rain-drenched scene.

Environmental groups concerned that President-elect Donald Trump will expand fracking and oil drilling off the California coast are calling on President Barack Obama to declare a permanent bar on new leases. The Center for Biological Diversity sounded the alarm this week, suing the Department of the Interior and two of its divisions for allowing fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, under leases in the Santa Barbara channel.

LOS ANGELES (CN) – The throng of demonstrators stood on an overpass in downtown LA, holding banners aloft and gripping onto the green chain link fence as a chorus of car horns greeted them below. Among the group were Hispanics, African-Americans and Muslims. They were all in their late teens to early twenties.

The extraordinary diversity within the population of Los Angeles is reflected in a judicial race that pits a British-born prosecutor against a Vietnamese American civil litigator in a race that has brought background, experience and temperament to the fore. One candidate was educated in London and steeped in the culture that produced the "Rumpole of the Bailey" television series.

A jury on Thursday found accused “Grim Sleeper” serial killer Lonnie Franklin Jr. guilty of the first-degree murder of nine women, a teenage girl and the attempted murder of his only known survivor. The jury deliberated for over 1 1/2 days before delivering the verdict to Judge Kathleen Kennedy shortly after 1:30 p.m. in a courtroom packed with family members, press and law enforcement.

LOS ANGELES (CN) – There’s a scene in the film “Casino” where Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci have their wives chit-chat on the phone so the two mobsters can avoid an FBI wiretap and set a clandestine meeting in the Mojave Desert. “If a phone’s tapped the feds can only listen in on the stuff involving crimes,” De Niro’s character Sam “Ace” Rothstein tells us via voiceover.

LOS ANGELES (CN) - The last time Led Zeppelin graced a stage in California, Jimmy Carter was president, George Lucas' "Star Wars" was redefining blockbuster movies and Apple was a newly incorporated company. On July 24, 1977, Led Zeppelin played at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. By that time, the band had claimed the mantle as the biggest band in the world with a run of classic albums that still have the capacity to astonish today.